Tuesday September 9th 2025
Alderstone Road, Livingston
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
New speed limits in the streets of northern Livingston are ‘common sense’, councillors have agreed.
But some residents say there is a need for public engagement, saying the streets are too busy to warrant official limits being put in place.
And one councillor warned that “signage will have to be really good.”
Kenneth Brown, the council’s Roads Network Manager outlined plans for the introduction of national 20mph speed limit strategy to a meeting of Livingston North Local Area Committee.
Conservative Alison Adamson said: “I think a lot of it is common sense. Anybody who thinks that doing anymore that 20 miles an hour outside of a school is a good idea needs their head examined and certainly shouldn’t have a driving licence.”
But she warned that existing signage around St Margaret’s Academy, off Alderstone Road was already confusing.
She added: “I think we are all going to be aware people will need time to get used to it.
“Signage is going to have to be really good because it can be easy when you’re concentrating on driving that don’t what speed you are doing.”
Councillor Andrew Miller said: “I think the majority of the ward is moving from advisory to mandatory [20 mph] and I think it’s welcome.”
Colin Lewis, from Carmondean Community council said a lot of people had asked why the legislation was necessary.
He added: “It’s for good reasons, but I think there is going to have to be a lot of community engagement. A lot of the roads you look at it is just not possible to do 20mph anyway because of the numbers of cars parked, and a lot of people are saying that.”
Councillor Adamson asked how residents could fight the proposals if they disagreed.
Mr Brown said the council would seek engagement with residents before the temporary restrictions in place were made permanent.
He added: “The work that officers have done is quite robust and we would hope that residents would welcome it.”
Gordon Brown, the Roads and Transportation Service Manager, and lead officer for the local area committee, assured councillors that the public can give feedback through a specially set up council website.
He added: “When the consultation is carried out there will be an opportunity to feed back on that the consultation will be available on the website, but we will also be putting up small posters telling people to scan QR codes to allow them to feed back to the consultation directly.”
A report to councillors said; “Most residential roads in West Lothian currently have advisory 20mph speed limits in place and these will be changed to mandatory 20mph speed limits. The link roads in Livingston will generally remain at their current speed limits.
“The design of the road network means there is reduced pedestrian traffic on these roads and they provide strategic public transport corridors. By maintaining the existing speed limit on these roads, the impact on journey times should be minimal.
“The exception to this is where link roads pass close to schools or shopping areas. The remaining roads with 40mph, 50mph and rural speed limits have not been part of this review and the speed limits on these roads will not change.”
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